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Read my review of ANIMAL KINGDOM.

This Australian crime drama gets a wonderful true-to-the-source transfer to 1080p. The gritty 35mm look is presented with film grain in tact, but not so much that the image loses detail. The color palette is subdued, which is fitting for the dark underworld tale. The colors are natural, which helps sell the believability of the world. Blacks are especially given deep character on the screen. There were some fleeting moments of film scratches but that was all I saw.

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack is used as best as it can for the limited soundscape. The dialog heavy film features clear voices. For music and sound effects, the soundscape is weighted toward the front. The only stand out is the LFE track during some key violent moments where shotgun blast boom, making an impression on the viewer.
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This best of 2010 reminded of another one of the best films of 2010 — WINTER’S BONE. Both films are crime dramas set in working class families. Teens are at the center of both tales, living in worlds of violence that they cannot escape from. They have to learn to cope and maneuver through it. There is no one they can trust, so they’re on their own.

Joshua “J” Cody (James Frecheville) is 17 and his mother has an overdose. Now he has to go live with her family in Melbourne; the family she left behind for his sake. His grandmother Janine (Jacki Weaver, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK) is the sweet matriarch of a family of criminals. J describes his uncle Andrew, aka Pope, (Ben Mendelsohn, THE NEW WORLD) as the one he is most scared of, and rightfully so. He has an intense, intimidating stare and a knack for getting people to do things they don’t really want to do. Pope is the leader of a robbery gang with his best friend Barry “Baz” Brown (Joel Edgerton, THE SQUARE). When the levelheaded and kind Baz wants out, Pope becomes lost and begins to spiral out of control.
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The plot is simple. A pimp hunts down a serial killer who has been murdering his girls. What first-time director Hong-jin Na creates out of this premise is an edge of your seat thriller that is always one step ahead of our expectations. It made be think about how painfully conventional most thrillers really are.

Joong-ho Eom (Yun-seok Kim, RUNNING WILD) is a former cop who has went into the more lucrative pimp game. However, he’s still drowning in debt and his girls are disappearing on him, believing a client is kidnapping them and selling them as sex slaves. He gets a call from a client and sends out Mi-jin Kim (Yeong-hie Seo, BEDEVILLED), who is sick and must leave her young daughter Eun-ji (Yoo-jeong Kim) at home alone. Joong-ho starts looking into this client and discovers he was the last person to call for the missing girls. He starts to fear that he has sent out Mi-jin to meet the serial killer Young-min Jee (Jung-woo Ha, TIME).
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